


Bitter Shots

by whitesilverandmercury



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: BLARGH, Drabble, Ficlet, M/M, One-Shot, Tumblr Fic, and lance in a star wars t-shirt, bc i'm a dweeb and what i listen to always sneaks into what i'm writing, bc immediately i saw barista keith with a ponytail, excuse my gratuitous music references, fic prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-07
Updated: 2017-06-07
Packaged: 2018-11-10 02:14:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,316
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11117760
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whitesilverandmercury/pseuds/whitesilverandmercury
Summary: There are plenty of awkward moments in life, some more mortifying than others, some less. Falling up the stairs. Swimming into someone else’s lost Band-Aid at the public pool. Working at a late-night coffee shop on a slow, soggy Tuesday evening, and turning around from washing some house mugs to find your high school ex staring at you from the other side of the Square tablet and register. // one-shot, tumblr fic prompt for the lovely @slotheyes





	Bitter Shots

 

There are plenty of awkward moments in life, some more mortifying than others, some less. Falling up the stairs. Swimming into someone else’s lost Band-Aid at the public pool. Working at a late-night coffee shop on a slow, soggy Tuesday evening — hiss and grind of espresso machine, rattle and clink of dishes in the sink, soft hum of the building’s heater overlaying shop music as the last few regulars pack up, last few non-regulars drift out, a to-goer hurries with his umbrella poised to open — and turning around from washing some house mugs to find your high school ex staring at you from the other side of the Square tablet and register.

Keith stops short, dish towel still crumpled in dried hands, and stares at Lance as Lance stares back, kind of frozen half-leaning on the counter, one shoulder cocked, free hand hovering forgotten at his side.

“Oh,” Lance says, slight lilt of surprise. “Uh, hey.”

“Hi,” Keith replies.

“You work here?”

Keith raises his brows slowly.

Face pinching, Lance issues a tight little chuckle. “Ha, I mean, obviously you work here. Duh.”

There is a short standoff — though devoid of the same potential for violence, just an awkward moment of uncertainty, on edge, a friction between them as Lance runs his hands through his burnt cinnamon hair to lace his fingers at the back of his neck and Keith shifts his weight to one foot and then the other, palms pressed to the counter, shoulders bunched up.

Overhead, soft and low from the shop speakers, music bounces through the quiet, dulls the clink of more dishes being washed in the back, machine parts being cleaned and air-dried. Keith hooked up his phone to the stereo not too long ago, music on shuffle — this is Clairity, infectious beat, smooth voice, synthpop. One of those retro-spacey-sexy sort of songs. _I’m dancing with my elbows, I hack into your cell phone, the cool kids got those shell-toes, but I look good in Velcro_ — And it is so comically unfitting for this moment that it is awkward in its own hilarious right and it kind of uncoils the tension in his shoulders because what a fucking movie moment, right?  

Lance McClain, class of 2014 heartthrob, varsity baseball team star pitcher, throat firmed up a little and his chest broadened, but his face is still smooth and soft as ever, those stormy blue eyes and dark brows. Lance McClain in a thin, rain-freckled anorak jacket and open hoodie, _Star Wars_ shirt underneath, while Keith gawks from his side of the coffee bar, dark hair pulled back in a stub of a half-back that is all the ponytail he can get without pieces falling loose at the nape of his neck, at his ears, across his brow. Black T-shirt and black jeans, scuffed floral-printed Converse, the toes of which are milk-stained and syrup-sticky, like the tiny hip-apron he’s already taken off for the night and tossed in the back. And the synth beat bounces on.

 _Fall asleep to techno, I make up my own tempo, a prom date told me hell no_ —

Glances dance around, swerving too close, veering away, avoiding. Evading. There’s a guy that came in with Lance, off by the sofas at the window, busy on the phone. Landmine. Field of emotional landmines.

“So what do you want?” Keith asks.

Lance laughs, his awkward laugh, that slightly raspy, edge of sarcasm chuckle. “Man,” he says, “just as chipper as ever, huh? I mean, I want coffee, obviously, this is a coffee shop. I know it’s late for coffee, but, you know, long day, long night — ”

“Yeah,” Keith grunts, “I mean what do you want, what are you ordering?”

Flustered, Lance chuckles again, this one more kneejerk and genuine. Just a little open-mouthed grin and knotted brow. A smile tugs at the corner of Keith’s mouth; he bites it back, almost unsuccessfully.

“Yeah, can I get … ” The smile goes out like a light and Lance twists around to the guy near the windows. “Hunk, what did you want?”

The guy — Hunk, apparently — leans away from his phone call to say: “House dark, black.” His big brown eyes veer to Keith; his face dimples in a friendly smile, apologetic. “If you still have some. You don’t have to make a new brew or anything!”

Keith doesn’t wait for Lance to repeat the order. “You like French press?” he asks. “It’ll be fresher for you.”

“Sure,” Hunk says.

Keith pulls over the coffee grinder, eyes flickering up to the guy and back to Lance and down to the coffee again. He knows. It’s been three years and he can still read Lance like the _Highlights_ back page scavenger hunt when you’re a kid sitting alone in the dentist’s office —

“So what are you up to?”

Keith cuts Lance a look as he rolls open a bag of whole beans, the smell blooming rich and sweet below his nose. “What, now? Or in life?”  

Lance inclines his chin, shrugs limply, shoves his hands in his pockets. “Both,” he suggests, and cracks one of his uniquely charming smiles. A little more subdued now, less reckless and misplaced. It’s weird and terrifying how much he’s grown up in three years when Keith doesn’t feel like he has himself, at all. 

“Well.” Keith straightens, tossing hair out of his eyes before flipping on the grinder. Through the growl of it, his eyes roam the empty coffee shop, the few little sweeping piles waiting to be dusted into broom pan, half the tables with chairs stacked, leather sofas near the window, repurposed patio lights strung along the one brick wall. His gaze finds Lance again and he presses his mouth in a firm line, raising his brows. “Working,” he replies dryly. “Or, trying to. I’m in the middle of closing, but. You know, customers.”

Lance snaps his tongue against the roof of his mouth, a little _tch_ sound as he gives Keith a pointed look. _Ha ha_ , that look says. _Funny_.

Keith can’t bite back a grin fast enough so he tries to hide it, but he knows Lance saw it. Some sort of tension releases in Lance’s shoulders for it. He drums his knuckles on the counter, smiling faintly in turn.

“School,” Keith says then as he adds the hot water to the French press and starts a pocket timer. “I’m graduating next spring. Trying to decide whether I want to accrue more debt for grad school or not.”

“Oh, right on.”

“What about you?”

Lance rolls his shoulders back in a little shrug, heaving a long sigh as if unsure whether his reply is appropriate for a first conversation after three years. Always so exaggerative. Always so entertaining. Finally he says, “Well, I really want to go to school for film, but I’m putting it off for a little bit … ”

“I meant your drink,” Keith murmurs. “But … also all that.”

Lance flushes faint pink, stutter of sheepish laughter. “Oh. Uh … ”

Keith watches him grind his tongue along the ridge of his teeth as his eyes scan the chalk board menu overhead. Dishes rattling in the back. On the shop stereo — _Nobody wants to dance with me, don’t wanna dance with nobody, I don’t wanna dance with nobody_ … Rain whispers at the window. Hunk laughs, on the phone. Lance grinds and grinds his tongue and Keith remembers how he tastes like metal after that, tastes like blood, and at one side, he picks at his thumbnail with his middle fingernail and Keith snaps, “You’re doing that thing with your mouth you do when you’re nervous. Why are you nervous?”

With a flutter of lashes, Lance jumps just a breath or two, before his face pinches in gentle defense. “I’m not nervous, I feel pressured. You’re staring at me and I don’t know what I want to drink. Surprise me.” More words hover on his lower lip for a moment, and his face darkens a tiny bit more — no, he retreats, and when Lance’s smile retreats like the tide, it makes _Keith_ nervous. Nice to know that much hasn’t changed, either. It’s very weird to feel like he knows him yet doesn’t know him. He is like a ghost. Ghost of a first kiss, ghost of dark bedroom, blue sheets, making out in the high school black box theater, brush of tan skin, midnight laughter, the unopened condom that got lost between the mattress and the wall, borrowed shirt smelling like laundry detergent, deodorant, skin, the way sunlight fell at a slant across a book in a coffee shop and lit dark hair a burnt cinnamon sort of color —

“And yes,” Lance husks, eyes burning into Keith. “Yes, I’m nervous. I didn’t expect to run into you. At all. Are you happy now?”

_Are you happy now?_

It’s probably supposed to be sarcasm, defiance. _There, happy now?_ But it comes out like he’s asking something else. His voice is thick. He says _Are you happy now?_ and it doesn’t feel like attitude.  

_Are you happy now?_

_Without me?_

And that’s not fair. They were seventeen, eighteen. They were dumb and they were teenagers and dumb teenagers crazy in love are never actually in love, love comes after, when the maelstrom of hormones levels out, and attraction softens from obsession into something more rational, less desperate, more lucid and focused, and queer awakenings are always fucking hard —

“Yeah, I’m happy,” Keith says. His voice tries to flatten itself to the roof of his mouth. He clears his throat. “But I wasn’t _unhappy_. With you.”

Lance doesn’t seem to know what to say. His eyes flicker elsewhere, anywhere else, and Keith wonders if it’s because he didn’t mean to ask _that_ , if he didn’t want to ask that, or if he secretly, subconsciously asked and didn’t realize until Keith answered.

“Are _you?_ ” Keith says next over the grind and hiss of the espresso machine, tapping Lance’s to-go cup on the counter idly to channel the mild discomfort somewhere. Mild guilt. Mild frustration. Mild excitement to see him even if he feels like a ghost. Mild regret for the things said, the things done. Mild ache for unfinished business. Stale resentment that just doesn’t feel as satisfying anymore, not at all.

“Yeah.” Lance nods resolutely. “Yeah, I’m doing good.”

“Good.” Keith nudges the bar fridge shut and pours milk into the steam pitcher with one hand, stirs Hunk’s French press with the other. Overhead, the music — new alt-J, _Deadcrush_.  

Keith finishes Hunk’s drink, snaps the wand down into the pitcher of milk for Lance and as the shriek of steam rips between them, he sighs. Tosses the damp sanitizer rag hand to hand, hooks one ankle around the other and leans against the counter, tipping his head and waiting for Lance to meet his eyes.

“So,” he says, nostalgic smirk plucking at the corner of his mouth, “did you spill coffee all over _him_ to pick him up, too?”

Lance scoffs, kind roll of the eyes. Ah, the bittersweet ability to laugh about things in the past, not quite comfortable but distanced enough. “ _No_ ,” he says. But then he realizes he’s admitted without even admitting, and he scrambles to save face. “Wait — what? What do you mean? Who?”

Typical Lance. Such a well-meaning dummy sometimes. And Keith had really been hoping that what happened between them might have changed something. Make all that shit at the end worthwhile. But now he’s worried that’s not the case. He nods towards the guy waiting patiently at the window, still on the phone speaking rhythmic and beautiful that Keith guesses is something Native, or Islander. Pretty, whatever it is. The guy, Hunk, he laughs and it is the sweetest sort of man giggle that somehow goes perfectly with guys like him, real bears in stature, broad and dense, yet somehow soft at the same time.

Keith finds Lance’s eyes again, raising his brows as if to say, _New type?_

Lance is blushing and flustered and tongue-tied for a moment and that is enough of an answer. Keith smiles to himself, satisfied by that. He transfers the foamed milk, follows with espresso shots over top.

“Fuck, Keith, you know that was an accident,” Lance mumbles, meaning the spilled coffee, at a different coffee shop, on a different day. The day they first met, actually. _Spill coffee all over him to pick him up, too?_

Keith’s smile broadens to an idle grin, tiny flash of teeth, chuckle like half a breath. He knows it was an accident. He just doesn’t think he’ll ever stop giving Lance shit about it.

“At least he didn’t give me a fake number like you did,” Lance mutters.

Keith leaves the spoon in the milk pitcher and grabs the sea salt sprinkles, the bottle of sweet drizzle. He laughs, tapping one toe behind his heel, in the same realm as twiddling one’s thumbs when guilty of not feeling guilty. “I was being cautious,” he reminds Lance playfully, and it gives him pause, the way Lance looks at him as if hearing him laugh is something in which he’d lost hope.  

But Lance recovers quickly, picks back up the teasing after a moment. “Did you do that to your new boyfriend?”

“No.”

Lance slaps a hand on the counter gently, points a finger. “Aha! So you have a new boyfriend, too — ”

“Hey, babe,” Shiro starts saying, poking out from around the corner near the sink, where front of house becomes back of house, his hair a finger-combed mess and a splash here and there from the back sink on his shirt. And if that is not the most typical, yet cruelest joke of perfect timing life could play —

Keith jumps, almost drops the milk pitcher and spoon on his way to the sink, and Shiro sees the last two customers of the night and his tired informality instantly recoils back into assistant manager professionalism, a more reserved and responsible sort of sociability — embarrassed for saying _babe_ in front of customers, unprofessional as he fears it is. He clears his throat and says under his breath so he doesn’t make the to-goers feel rushed, “You wrapping up after this?”

“Yeah, I mean, I have to finish cleaning and then I’ve got to pull the till and stuff … ”

“I’ll do that for you, just let me know when you’re done.”

“Okay.”  

Shiro smiles, nods at Lance, at Hunk, and ducks back of house again. In his wake, Keith stands at the sink staring at Lance and Lance stands at the counter staring at Keith and there is nothing but blushing and staring and the hum of music in the background.

Finally, Keith says, “What do you want to ask me?”

Lance blinks, face pinching. “What? Huh?”

“You’re doing it again, that thing with your tongue that you do when you want to say something but you won’t.”

Lance doesn’t even hesitate; his face goes cool and even like the bay on a windless night and he says flatly, “You went ghost, Keith. You just … stopped talking to me.”

Keith opens his mouth to reply, but there is nothing. Little pause, dimple of guilt, skittish glance — eyes darting away lest Lance catch the chagrin, the remorse, the lingering injustice on his end. A cold, grim frown more like the husk of a pout blooms on his face. He shifts his weight from foot to foot, slipping his hands in his back pockets and finally finding Lance’s eyes again.

“I mean, think about what happened,” he says half through his teeth, but it is not cruel. It is a bruise.

Lance nods slowly; now it’s his turn to slide his gaze away, brow knotted. Eyes churning like the tides. Keith knows that shadow. He feels like it’s his fault. He knows it’s not. Not entirely. Lance cares. Keith knows he cares. He cares too much. He always has. And it’s not like Keith is any less guilty of his own crimes.

Clearing his throat, Lance points to the hot drinks, still behind the counter. Keith crosses back over, passing them forth.

“You want to, you know, catch up sometime or something? Get coffee?” Lance says, just shy of his usual confidence — and not because he’s nervous, but because he just seems tired. “I miss you.”

He throws it in there so simply. Keith bristles, cutting him a look. His stomach pinches; his heart bottoms out fast and brief before lurching back to his chest. _I miss you_.

“This isn’t a young adult novel, or a rom-com or something, Lance. We’re not getting back together.”

“ _Wow_ ,” Lance says through his first sip of coffee, smack of lips and wide, stunned eyes. “Bitter as fuck.”

Keith scowls. “What?”

“The coffee,” Lance parries, flash of a glance. “The hell did you make me?”

“Sea salt and hazelnut macchiato.” Keith crosses his arms, leaning back against the counter. “Sorry, I must have burned your shots,” he mumbles, because it was definitely a shitty thing he just said, a selfish and self-centered assumption. Little bit humiliating, considering the way Lance looked at him like he is crazy for even suspecting such ulterior motives. _Getting back together_. Like it’s offensive or something. And really, it is, to accuse him of that. Foot in mouth, for sure.

“Nah, I’m kidding.” Lance waves a hand and digs for his wallet. “This place has the best coffee.”

“You come here a lot?”

“In the morning.”

“Oh. Yeah. I always work nights.”

“I just meant I miss you as a person.”

Keith freezes up again, this time in the most defenseless of ways, almost a flinch as the words cut straight to his soul swift and sharp as an arrow. _Miss you as a person_.

“I’m different,” he blurts, because three years’ worth of words are crowding in his throat but he will not speak them. Cannot. Not here, not tonight, not first thing. “I mean, I’m different than I was. We were eighteen, Lance. And I’m sure you’re different, too.”

Nothing but the music and the staring again.

Hunk ends his phone call and starts wandering over. Lance jumps. “Oh, shit — Hunk, I have your coffee,” he says, motioning. He pulls out his debit card.

Keith waves it away. “We can get coffee,” he concedes, voice frail but not flat. He glances at Hunk, who looks perfectly confused but not bothered enough to invade their conversation. “And catch up. Sometime. Yeah?”

Lance falls still. He looks at Keith, looks at him but doesn’t really seem to see him. Waiting, perhaps, for the punch line. Wondering if it’s a good idea. Regretting asking, maybe. But then he smiles, and it’s no sun breaking free of the clouds but it’s warm enough. “Cool,” he says. “Cool, I like that idea. Okay. Well, I’ll see you around, then.”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah.”

“Bye, Keith.”

“Have a good night, guys.”

Lingering eyes, pause heavy with words like the clouds had been heavy with rain all day. Apology. Vindication. Stubbornness on both ends to say it aloud. _What happened_. Think about what happened. _You stopped talking to me_. We’re different so maybe it’s okay to be friends again —

Yes, they are very different now. And, now, thinking back on it, Keith isn’t sure they were ever friends to begin with. Not like people probably should be before they start doing things together, anyway. And dating Lance was like playing on the shore in a storm, and dating himself, he imagines, is like playing with matches, and it’s been three years but if he hasn’t forgotten what it felt like drowning, then he’s sure Lance has not forgotten what it feels like to be burned.

But — Keith sort of feels like he knows how to swim now, and it sort of seems like Lance has learned to play with fire.

So maybe the shots won’t pull so bitter next time.

 

 

**end.**


End file.
